Big policies, small margins and a Trump wildcard: What to expect from the new Congress

Lawmakers are kicking off a new, two-year session of Congress on Friday, and Republicans will be in charge in the House and Senate.

Whether they can take advantage of the trifecta to pass GOP priorities ? including President-elect Donald Trump's campaign promises ? will depend on their ability to overcome internal divisions that have paralyzed them in the past.

Republicans say they’re ready to work together to tackle a full load of legislative priorities, from paring down government spending to passing Trump’s agenda on tax cuts, oil and gas production, mass deportations and more.

But delivering on their goals may not be easy. Republicans have a tiny majority in the House, and every lawmaker has their own priorities. That means just a few members can derail even must-pass legislation.

And Trump has already demonstrated to lawmakers how quickly he can force them to change their plans: Controversial Cabinet nominees have had Senate Republicans scrambling to appease Trump while weighing fitness for office. House Republicans had a deal to avoid a government shutdown blown up overnight by Trump demanding big changes.

Plus, events can scramble or accelerate any would-be priorities. For example, GOP senators are also highlighting a New Year's Day attack in New Orleans that killed at least 14 people and a fatal Tesla Cybertruck explosion at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas as an imperative to get the president-elect's national security nominees confirmed as soon as possible.

Here’s what to expect from the new 119th Congress.

Leadership on thin ice

The first order of business when lawmakers arrive on Capitol Hill Friday will be to formally elect their new leaders. House Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to lead the House again for the next two years, and he has Trump’s "complete and total" endorsement

But a few ultraconservative House lawmakers have said they aren’t sure whether they’ll vote for Johnson again after a spending meltdown paralyzed the House right before the holiday break.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has said he won’t vote for Johnson no matter what. All Democrats plan to support House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. That means Johnson must get every other Republican member of Congress to vote for him to keep his crown.

A few other House Republicans say they are still undecided on whether to support Johnson, even after Trump endorsed him. At least one Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, has publicly released a list of demands she wants in exchange for their vote. Expect more wheeling and dealing before they throw their support behind Johnson – if they do so at all.

Tiny vote margins could cause headaches

Republicans will have a tiny four-seat majority in the House when Congress convenes, the smallest in modern history.

That ratio will shift throughout the beginning of the year. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned from the House in November and will not retake his seat on Friday, leaving one vacancy as the year begins (a 219-215 majority for Republicans.)

Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. and Mike Waltz, R-Fla., plan to leave Congress for roles in the Trump administration, but not until at least Jan. 20, when Trump is inaugurated. That will further narrow the majority temporarily to 217-215.

All three are from districts that are likely to send another Republican to replace their departing member during special elections to replace the departing members. Once that happens, the final Republican majority is expected to be 220-215.

These narrow margins mean the GOP will need nearly total unanimity to get anything through the lower chamber – giving each House Republican significant power to derail any legislation if they disagree with it. That kind of power dynamic has been a challenge for the conference before, as rank-and-file members repeatedly blocked or delayed policy spearheaded by their own leadership in the last Congress.

In the Senate, Republicans will also have a relatively thin 53-47 majority. That's enough to comfortably pass agreed-upon GOP priorities, but not enough to easily approve controversial ones that may lose the support of moderate senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Case in point: Gaetz dropped out of consideration to be Trump's attorney general when it was clear he could not get enough GOP support to get approved.

Republicans' Senate majority is also not big enough to overcome the 60-vote threshold necessary to overcome the filibuster on most legislation. Republicans plan to pass much of Trump's agenda through a party-line "reconciliation" process (more on that below), but any other policy will need Democratic support.

Make Washington make sense: Sign up for USA TODAY's On Politics newsletter.

A big play for Trump's agenda

Most federal government trifectas last only two years.

Republicans are well aware of this and plan to move quickly to pass ambitious policies that reflect Trump’s campaign promises. If done the typical way, most of those policies would hit a dead end in the Senate controlled 53-47 by Republicans, as 60 votes are needed to pass the vast majority of bills.

To get around that, Republicans plan to use a procedure called “reconciliation” to pass their tax and spending-related priorities with a simple majority vote – the same tool Democrats used to push through President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and a COVID-19 stimulus bill in 2021.

Republicans have said they want to focus on border security, domestic energy production, extending Trump’s 2017 tax plan, paring down government spending and more. They may pursue two separate reconciliation packages, focusing on border security first.

Before they left for the holidays, House Republicans added a last-minute wrinkle to that plan. They agreed to pursue raising the debt ceiling as part of the reconciliation process – which is sure to be a politically fraught debate. Raising the debt ceiling pays the federal government's loans on things it has already paid for, and defaulting on the federal debt could have catastrophic consequences. The high-stakes debate regularly stirs up concerns about government spending and likely won't be easily resolved.

Democrats playing the opposition

Democrats will be in the minority in both chambers, denying them powerful committee chairmanships, subpoena power for oversight and investigations without GOP support, and leadership roles that can set the agenda in Congress.

Instead, they'll likely focus on telling the public about what they see as the harmful consequences of Republican policies to rally opposition and potentially bring more voters to their side in the 2026 midterm elections.

In the Senate, they'll be able to throw up roadblocks to legislation they oppose by using the filibuster to create a 60-vote threshold to pass most bills – except the party-line reconciliation bills Republicans plan to use for Trump's priorities.

And if Republicans can't agree among themselves enough to take advantage of that tiny majority in the House? Don't expect Democrats to bail them out unless they get something in return.

A constant 2026 midterm threat

Political trifectas typically don't last long for either Democrats or Republicans.

The majority party has repeatedly lost control of the House in the first midterm election after gaining across-the-board power in a presidential election: Biden, Trump, former President Barack Obama, and former President Bill Clinton all lost the House after their first two years in office.

Still, lawmakers who are up for reelection in 2026 – all House members and 33 senators – will constantly be looking to deliver for voters in the hopes they can keep their seats in two years.

Only one Senate Republican is running in a state won by Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024: Collins of Maine. The political map can also easily change in an off-cycle election season where there's no presidential race atop the ticket. In addition, several Republican senators in deeper red states could be vulnerable to primary threats.

Trump and his allies are already leveraging those dynamics in both the House and Senate by threatening to back primary challengers to independent-minded Republicans to try to force them to fall in line.

For example, Trump said in mid-December that GOP senators who oppose his nominees for "stupid" reasons should face primary challengers. A few days later, he posted on social media that he hoped Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who opposed his government funding plan, would get a primary challenge and said: "Republican obstructionists have to be done away with."

But some lawmakers are already growing tired of the threats.

“You can’t primary” every Republican who votes against spending bills, Massie said after the spending bill passed with 34 Republicans voting against it. “I mean, you can... You’ll weed out the weak. But the rest of us will have antibodies.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What to expect of new Congress, from big policies to Trump wildcard